Challenge?

Here are a few words that should never be in the same sentence together "challenge" and "pregnancy" but I like to live dangerously haha

There is a blogger I follow, 12 Million Steps, who just reached his goal of walking 12 million steps. When he first started the blog, he had determined it would take him that many steps to lose weight and be healthy. However his life had other things planned for him. He hit the number of steps but did not make it to his goal.

Completely changing his life this time, starting over in nearly every aspect, he has decided to try again and hit the reset button. He's going to walk 12 million steps... again.

I think it will be a fun challenge, especially since he has no deadline in mind. It's not "I will walk 12 million steps by June 2012" or anything like that. I also think I can join in! After all, walking is free, and I may spend many nights walking the floor with the baby, so why not use a step counter and log it in a spreadsheet?

I want to get back to Weight Watchers when the baby is born so this will fall in nicely with the program too. It's not hard to count steps and I probably won't count it as Activity Points, but it will count for something.

I don't have a step counter yet, but I will be sure to get one. I'm planning on starting the challenge tomorrow, because I walk every day to get a little bit of exercise and keep my sanity. Sure it might not be 10,000 steps a day, more like 500-1,000 but it's still something. In the mean time, there is a step counter on my phone, so I'll be using that, even if it is a little inaccurate.

Data is data!!

So, wish me luck. I might be able to complete this challenge by the time the baby has his first birthday, or his second. We will see!!

It's a White Christmas Experiment

Note: I apologise, but I am having serious tech issues with the vlog, I am working on it. Its just more time consuming than I thought it was going to be. Hope to get it up before weigh in tomorrow. It's super awesome, so please don't think I am blowing it off. 


I have been digging through Rachel Wilkerson's blog archive lately and found this gem of a blog post: The Oral Exam

Basically, she started a series called Beauty Booty where you could see what beauty products she uses and what does/doesn't work, etc. If you are a twenty-something you will definitely love her blog. Her no nonsense attitude and just how she writes is hilarious. I love her blog to bits.

Anyway, this blog is all about white teeth. She recommends using Crest Whitening Strips and Listerine Whitening Mouthwash (a pre-brush rinse). She says that you should definitely whiten your teeth because its something you can do *now* to feel good about yourself while you are working on other things (losing weight/waiting for your results to show) And I was in need of some major instant gratification.

I ran out to the store and bought the 10-day pack of white strips ($24...next time I am using a coupon) and the smallest bottle of whitening wash ($5)

I did the rinse, and looked at my teeth. Now my teeth aren't bad by any means, in fact, I am constantly complimented on how straight they are and how much enamel I have. I was lucky enough to get some awesome recessive gene, I guess, because neither of my parents have super thick enamel on their teeth.

But I wanted white teeth. So I decided to do the 10 Days of Whitening count down to a White Christmas. I didn't even realize that there are 10 short days until Christmas, so this was perfect.

My goal is to take a picture of my teeth every day after I do the rinse 2x and the strips once daily. At the end of 10 days I will make a slideshow out of it. Pretty cool, huh? That way you can see how white my teeth get in only 10 days for $30. I am pretty sure the mouth wash will last me longer than 10 days.

Once I do that, maintenance will be easy: I will do the strips once every 3 months, and continue with the whitening rinse daily. I think because I drink so much coffee now, I will have to remain vigilant.

I can already tell my teeth are gleaming. I wonder if they can actually get any whiter? I'll know in 10 days!

The Listerine is pretty cool. Both literally, and figuratively! You start off with 1/2 oz of liquid and as you swish it around for a minute (intense) it becomes foam. And then when you spit, you spit foam. Now the first time I did it, I accidentally measured out a whole ounce and my mouth couldn't handle all the foam, I looked like a rabid dog. I was much more careful the second time.

Also: I peeked at the scale- 213.4!! Which is the lowest number I've seen in the last 2 years. I hope to lose a total of 5 lbs by Christmas so I better get back to working out.